Back to the Beginning
by Sekhem
Summary: CHAPTER ONE REWRITTEN.  Everybody knows the Fullmetal Alchemist was recruited by Colonel Roy Mustang, right?  And we all know how it turned out.  So, what happens if you remove him from the equation?  Rated T, just to be on the safe side.


Okay. For those of you who've been paying attention, this is not the second chapter of this series. That one is still in development. This is a total rewrite of the first chapter, to replace the crap I'd posted before.

The idea behind the story is the question "What if Roy Mustang died in Ishbal?" The how and why of it, I've already got worked out, and I have a basic idea of some of the major events. All I'm willing to say at this point is that Hughes does live through it, and by the time Ed is fifteen, he has an entirely new skill set than he did in the original series.

For now, I will be drawing pretty heavily on the original anime and the manga for story ideas and background.

Once again, I may or may not continue this, depending on what kind of response I get, so if you do like this, let me know. If not, please be kind. Any and all flames will be used to toast marshmallows with.

Fullmetal Alchemist and all associated characters and situations still belong to Hiromu Arakawa, as does a fair chunk of the dialogue in this piece.

As always, thank you all for reading.

#

Reset: Back to the Beginning

#

Maes Hughes missed his wife.

No. Scratch that. He missed his wife, their cozy little house in East City, and not still being in motion when he sat down.

Three days on a train, then another hour in a horse-drawn cart to a farm in the middle of nowhere on what was most likely a wild-goose chase made him more than appreciate the comforts he'd left behind.

"Sorry about the bumpy ride, Major Hughes." Their driver, an old man nearing retirement, had met them at the train station and volunteered to take them where they needed to go. "Automobiles are rare around here, you know."

"That's all right," Maes said, wincing as they went over yet another pothole. "It's…charming…really…"

"So, what business do you have with the Elrics, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Chasing rumors," he replied. "Stories about two brothers with a gift for alchemy. Central wanted someone to check it out, and I got tapped."

"So, scouting for new State Alchemists, are you?" the old man said. "Didn't know you were one."

"I'm not," he said. "But with everyone we lost in the war, I was the only one they could spare for any length of time. The army's desperate for new recruits."

The old man turned and eyed his companion, Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, appreciatively. "At least you got a pretty girl with you."

Maes bristled at the implication. "Lieutenant Hawkeye is my assistant," he said, "and I am a happily married man."

The old man smirked. "Suit yourself." They rode in silence for a few minutes more. "I can't wait to see the look on those kids' faces when they see a high-ranking officer at their door."

"I'm not that highly ranked," he started to protest before he realized what the man said. "Did you say, kids?" He fumbled for the letter the bigwigs at Central had forwarded to him along with his orders. "The letter said, Resembool village, Edward Elric, age thirty-one."

The man's laugh rang out over the fields. "No, sir. Edward's eleven. His brother's a year younger."

_Kids._ He went cold at the thought. _They sent me to recruit children. Good gods._ "Any ideas, Lieutenant?"

Hawkeye didn't even crack a smile, bless her heart. "Either this document has come through a time vortex," she said, "or someone made a grave error."

He had to wonder if that was really the case.

#

The Elric house looked perfectly normal, if unlived-in, as he and Hawkeye, crossed the threshold into the front room. "Is anybody home?" he called, though there was no answer. "Hello?"

He pulled one of his knives, and heard the faint rustle from behind him as Hawkeye drew her gun. _Good woman,_ he thought. He'd had a bad feeling about this ever since he saw the house, and it was getting worse by the second.

The first room off the hall seemed to be an office. Books and papers were piled on the floor and desk, and among the stacks was a framed photo of two little boys proudly showing off the whopper of a fish they'd just caught, presumably to one of their parents. _Better times,_ he thought.

As he and Hawkeye went deeper into the house, he couldn't help thinking back on the horror novels Gracia had gotten him hooked on when they were in college. The hero – and he choked on the idea of thinking of himself that way – and his companion entering the dark, uninhabited house and getting torn apart by the monster.

And, of course, the basement door was standing open.

He pushed the images of tentacled horrors from beyond time and space to the back of his mind, took a deep breath, and started down the steps.

"Major Hughes," Hawkeye said, "look at this."

There was a trail of blood leading out of the basement, and small bloody handprints on the wall. "What the hell happened here?" he breathed.

They came to the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was an enormous, complex alchemical array drawn on the floor. He didn't know what it was for, and the person who could have told him had died during the war. Most of the diagrams were obliterated by the pools of blood both inside and outside the circle.

"Human transmutation," Hawkeye said softly from behind him. Of course, she'd know. Her father had been an alchemist, and Roy Mustang, who he knew had wanted to marry her, had been, too. "Children don't do that sort of thing…"

The stink of the blood and the horror of her words hit him all at once, and he found himself running out of the house and being sick in the bushes beside the porch. He hadn't done that since the first time he'd killed, during the war.

"Major Hughes!" Hawkeye emerged from the house just as he got his stomach back under control, and the old man who had driven them up to the Elric farm came running from the back. "Are you all right, sir?"

He wasn't, not by a long shot, but he still nodded. "Where are the Elric brothers now?" he rasped, his throat still burning from the acid.

The old man eyed him with concern, but replied, "If they're not here, they're probably over at the Rockbell place."

"Take us there." He had to see these children-who-weren't-children for himself.

#

_We've definitely found the right place._

Even if he hadn't seen the Rockbell Automail sign in the yard, the dog straining at its leash as it barked at them had a front left leg made of automail. The old man ran interference with it while he knocked on the door.

After a few moments, he heard movement on the other side, and an old woman's voice. "All right, Den, quit your yapping. We got visitors." When she opened the door, she looked about half his height, and about ten years older than his mother. "Can I help you?" she asked, eying them as if she thought they might make off with her good china.

"We're looking for the Elric brothers," he said. "Are they here?"

"It's important that we speak to them," Hawkeye added. "We heard they might be here."

And then he saw them.

A boy – no more than nine or ten years old – slumped in a wheelchair, one arm of his shirt, and one leg of his pants limp and empty. _Well, that accounts for the blood,_ he thought, even as his stomach turned over in rebellion. _Or some of it, anyway._ A man in a suit of armor – at least seven feet tall and three feet wide – emerged from the shadows pushing the wheelchair. He looked like he would bolt if Maes said so much as a harsh word to either of them.

"Edward Elric?" he asked, half-afraid of which one would answer.

The boy in the chair looked up at him through the veil of his bangs, and Maes could see the fire there. At least his spirits hadn't been broken.

"What did you do?" he asked. _Keep it quiet, and keep it gentle,_ he told himself. Whatever else they were, he was still dealing with children. "We've been to your house and we saw the circle. What did you create?"

The man in the armor curled one massive hand around his wrist. "We're sorry," he said, and sounded like a young child who was about to cry. His voice echoed in such a way there couldn't possibly have been anyone – no matter how small – in that suit of armor. "We're so sorry…"

#

Explanations had taken a good couple of hours and a demonstration that proved that the suit of armor that had been introduced to him as Alphonse Elric was indeed hollow.

The old woman, who had introduced herself as Pinako Rockbell, eyed him suspiciously from across the table, still apparently of the impression that he or Hawkeye might make off with the family valuables. "So, tell me. Major – "

"Maes Hughes," he said numbly. He'd had too many shocks in the past few hours to put up much fight.

"Why did you come here exactly?" _And you'd better make it good_, was the silent addition.

From the second he found out he was dealing with children, he had known this was coming, and dreaded it. "High Command received a letter from what we thought – " He glanced at Edward, still slumped in his wheelchair and staring blankly ahead. " – was the grown son of Hohenheim. He's the one they sent me after. And…" He well and truly hated what he was about to say, but he had a feeling if he didn't, she'd kill him. "…if he wasn't here, I was under orders to try to recruit the sons. If I'd known they were children, I never would have come."

She snorted at that, and took an irritated drag from her pipe. "You're a fool if you think Hohenheim would ever have been a dog of the military," she said at last. "You're an even bigger fool if you think those boys will, either."

"They performed human transmutation, Mrs. Rockbell," Hawkeye said. "and Edward transmuted a soul. That's not going to go unnoticed."

Pinako glared at him for a moment more. "Do you know what I did?" she said. "When that child crawled here covered in blood, do you know what I did?" He didn't answer, and she didn't give him time. "I buried that…thing…in the backyard. Alchemy created that monstrosity, and alchemy took those kids' bodies. And that's what you want them to do with their lives?"

He noticed a small blonde girl, about Edward's age, peeking into the room. Her eyes went wide, and she ducked back behind the wall when she saw him watching her.

"I'll wait outside, sir," Hawkeye murmured. Apparently she'd noticed the little girl, too.

"You do that." He waited until she'd left the room, then cleared his throat. "Mrs. Rockbell, the army can give them access to money, books, and research facilities they would never see as civilians. They might even find a way to reverse what they've done. In exchange they would have to swear loyalty and follow orders." For the first time that afternoon, he managed a faint smile. "Thus, the term, dog of the military."

"But, I thought the alchemist's motto was 'Be thou for the people,'" Alphonse said.

Maes' smile turned bitter as he remembered another alchemist who had thought the same way, and had been so very disillusioned at the end. "Only as far as the army lets them," he said. "There's a reason the pocketwatches alchemists carry are called leashes."

"Oh."

Pinako glared at him, silently puffing on her pipe.

"It's a moot point anyway," he said. "Unless something's changed in the last week, the army won't accept them until they're sixteen at least. I've never heard of an exception." He looked at Edward and Alphonse. "Either way," he said, "it's your choice. You were strong enough to survive this, and I think you'll be strong enough to make the right decision when the time comes."

"Do you think they have it in them to pass the exam?" Pinako asked, as if she were probing at a particularly nasty wound and afraid of what she might find.

"Mrs. Rockbell, I'm an investigator, not an alchemist," he said. "But considering what they did, and that that they survived it…" He shook his head. "Here." He handed her his business card and the packet of information he'd been sent with. "If they do eventually decide to enlist, send them to me at East City Headquarters."

Mrs. Rockbell smiled tightly. "I'm sure they'll keep it in mind, Major," she said in such a way that he was sure the packet and his card both would end up in the trash before an hour was up.

Hawkeye emerged from the other room where she'd been talking to Mrs. Rockbell's granddaughter. "Are you ready to go, sir?" she asked.

He and the old woman stared at each other for a moment longer. "I think I've done all I can here, Lieutenant," he said at last.

They said their goodbyes and clambered back into the cart for the ride back to the train station. They were both silent for a long time, before Hawkeye finally sighed. "It's such a shame about those boys," she said. "I've never seen anyone so…broken before."

"I wouldn't say that," he said, thinking back on the pure determination on the older boy's face, and remembering the same expression on a face he would never see again. "I think Edward Elric will be able to move mountains, once someone shows him where to put the lever."

"Do you intend to be that person?" Hawkeye asked, now eying him curiously.

He laughed at that, and let himself relax for the first time since they'd gotten to the Elric house. "No," he said, "we probably won't see them again for years."

#

To Be Continued...


End file.
